rosecution. He was
regarded as a victim who deserved all the confidence of the enemies of
France. He furnished Fouche with a considerable amount of information,
and he was fortunate enough to escape being hanged.

Notwithstanding the pretended necessity of employing secret agents,
Bonaparte was unwilling that, even under that pretext, too many
communications should be established between France and England: Fouche,
nevertheless, actively directed the evolutions of his secret army. Ever
ready to seize on anything that could give importance to the police and
encourage the suspicions of the Emperor, Fouche wrote to me that the
government had received certain--information that many Frenchmen
traveling for commercial houses in France were at Manchester purchasing
articles of English manufacture. This was true; but how was it to be
prevented? These traveling clerks passed through Holland, where they
easily procured a passage to England.

Louis Bonaparte, conceiving that the King of Holland ought to sacrifice
the interests of his new subjects to the wishes of his brother, was at
first very lenient as to the disastrous Continental system. But at this
Napoleon soon manifested his displeasure, and about the end of the year
1806 Louis was reduced to the necessity of ordering the strict observance
of the blockade. The facility with which the travelers of French
commercial houses passed from Holland to England gave rise to other
alarms on the part of the French Government. It was said that since
Frenchmen could so easily pass from the Continent to Great Britain, the
agents of the English Cabinet might, by the same means, find their way to
the Continent. Accordingly the consuls were directed to keep a watchful
eye, not only upon individuals who evidently came from England, but upon
those who might by any possibility come from that country. This plan was
all very well, but how was it to be put into execution? . . . The
Continent was, nevertheless, inundated with articles of English
manufacture, for this simple reason, that, however powerful may be the
will of a sovereign, it is still less powerful and less lasting than the
wants of a people. The Continental system reminded me of the law created
by an ancient legislator, who, for a crime which he conceived could not
possibly be committed, condemned the person who should be guilty of it to
throw a bull over Mount Taurus.

It is not my present design to trace a picture of the state of